Most teams are running their old PUs on friday.
Except for those who have poor reliability or want to test the latest PU version.
McLaren even tried out some runs on the Singapore settings on FP1, some say.
Anyway, expect them to go a bit down the order as the PUs are turned up for quali.

To add fuel to the fire of speculations, Renault management went for a chit chat with the Macca boys in their motor home.

Was looking forward to the new engine from Ferrari. Would the current delay be influenced by the fact that Mercedes took the advantage of the oil burn guidelines to introduce their engine at Spa prompting Ferrari to react to that?

New livery commemorating 70 years in F1 looks great though!

They don't seem to be much off the pace though in free practice with Vettel clocking with 0.1s of Bottas' time. However you can never tell with free practice times especially since Mercedes are capable of getting a generous turn of speed from their engine during practice.

Force India fellas racing with new "responsibility" guidelines. With Williams languishing behind and Red Bull too far ahead you cannot blame them for wanting to race each other.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfxavier

FP2 timings:

To add fuel to the fire of speculations, Renault management went for a chit chat with the Macca boys in their motor home.

Things seem to be pretty rocky between Alonso and Honda with Honda remarking that it is obvious Alonso doesn't want to stay. Mercedes have turned their back on Alonso citing previous experience with him at McLaren. What a sad story for one of the most talented drivers on the grid!

Was looking forward to the new engine from Ferrari. Would the current delay be influenced by the fact that Mercedes took the advantage of the oil burn guidelines to introduce their engine at Spa prompting Ferrari to react to that?

Things seem to be pretty rocky between Alonso and Honda with Honda remarking that it is obvious Alonso doesn't want to stay. Mercedes have turned their back on Alonso citing previous experience with him at McLaren. What a sad story for one of the most talented drivers on the grid!

Drive on,
Shibu.

Mercedes definitely took advantage of the new oil burn limits.
Some say by breaking a gentlemen's agreement with Ferrari that they both will introduce new engine under the new limits.

Honda has been very candid and open about their state in F1.
I guess the same is with the drivers and Mclaren as well.
Some say they are going to run the quali mode through Sunday at Monza.
Probably to show their intent to all stakeholders while they wait out the arrival of their heavily revised major update for ICE.

Hamilton delivered a stunning lap securing pole postion at Monza today. He has now surpassed Michael Schumacher to become the driver with the highest number of pole positions.
Due to penalties for a lot of drivers, we've got an unusual starting grid for tommorrow. Stroll at P2 & Ocon at P3. Bottas at P4 followed by the Ferrari mates Kimi & Vettel at P5 and P6 respectively.
18 year old Lance Stroll also becomes the youngest F1 driver to start from the front row.

Masterful by Lewis! A 1.478 seconds gap to the rest is really something under those conditions!

And bloody brilliant by Ocon and Stroll. Hopefully Perez wont find a way to wreck Ocon' race today. And Stroll has completely turned his season around. Apparently wet tyre testing was not part of his familiarization program at Williams. So, he found all that time on his own. Shame about the penalties on RBR though!

Not sure how it went so bad for Ferrari. Hopefully the red cars have something in the race for the sake of the Tifosi today. But it will be hard to clear all those Mercedes powered engines if it is fully dry today. An improving track will be the best bet.

What a masterful qualifying lap from Lewis. At a point where it looked like the young brigade would lock down the front row, he really took the fight to them. The qualifying itself was a topsy turvy affair which was manifest in the fact that the top cars like Vettel and Hamilton were still setting hot laps till the end of each session.

Stroll and Ocon have made most of the opportunity to put down their calling card and have proven that they have not dearth of talent. Augurs well for the future.

Apparently it seems that the Ferrari was not setup for wet weather, but the performance was quite dismal. The cars seemed to be doing fine till the end of Q2 but once Q3 started they were all at sea.

Quote:

Originally Posted by jfxavier

FP3 delayed due to rains.

Mercedes definitely took advantage of the new oil burn limits.
Some say by breaking a gentlemen's agreement with Ferrari that they both will introduce new engine under the new limits.

I am sure Hamilton would have been livid if he ever got wind of such an agreement!

I do not have any doubt about Honda coming good, but they are running out of teams to use their engine. McLaren has almost thrown in the towel and the Sauber deal fell through. The only option seems to be having their own team. But then, something like Formula E might make more sense.

Mercedes looked good on Saturday.
But are the Ferraris running less downforce for the expected dry race?
After all the Renault powered cars went ahead of them. Interesting strategy if it's true. Highly unlikely that Mercs are running a lot more wing.

At least Stoffel is supposed to be on a dry weather set up.
That's apparently why ALO lifted off towards the end of his lap to allow VAN to progress into Q3.
Not bad for the lowly Honda powered McLaren.

- FIA should have let the all the cars run under safety car to clear the water faster. Or they should have allowed a set-up change, which brings me to my second suggestion.

- It'll be more drama packed if FIA allow one time set-up change during wet weather conditions, for eg. if you practiced on dry and then it starts raining during qualifying, FIA should allow you to change the set-up and then run that "quali-set-up" in the main race. It'll give one more dimension to the strategic aspect of the race.

Lewis Hamilton does it once again at Monza. A comfortable win for him today. He is back at the top of the championship table.
Could only watch the last few laps unfortunately.
Teammate Bottas finished P2 to secure a 1-2 for Mercedes. The Ferraris couldn't get things moving at their home race. Vettel comes in at P3, Ricciardo P4 and Kimi P5.

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What a way to take the lead in Driver's standings. In front of your main rival team's home crowd.

This race was demoralising if you are a ferrari Fan.
When Horner said they will out score Ferrari in the 2nd half, few took it seriously. But seeing what happened at Monza, many would start listening to him more.
Without the engine penalties both Ricciardo and Verstappen might have beaten both Ferrari drivers.

Being beaten so bad in the home race by Mercedes might be why Tifosi was booing hamilton.
Probably not really aimed at Hamilton, but at Ferrari's lack of result.